“We’re certainly proud of our roots and will continue to be rooted in print for years and years to come,” Mr. Lavery said, but added that “as we’ve been extending our audit services we’ve become platform- and channel agnostic, including online, digital editions, newsletters and apps” along with print publications.

About "circulations": ABC's name is often cast incorrectly because of that slightly quirky usage. Lavery tells Elliott it's often confused with the American Broadcasting Company.

“By the way, we were there first,” Mr. Lavery said, laughing, but whatever confusion there might have been did not benefit his organization.

Now its only competition is the American Alliance of Museums and the Association for Accounting Marketing, neither of which compete in the same space. Still, I imagine what this will really mean for those of us who report on media is that sentences identifying the group are about to get 36 letters longer: "The Alliance for Audited Media, formerly the Audit Bureau of Circulations." That's not as nonsensical, though, as another trade group name change Elliott mentions in his piece: "the Magazine Publishers Association, which in October 2010 adopted the name MPA — the Association for Magazine Media." Yep, the dash is part of the name there.

The group will unveil a new logo and a video Thursday, Elliott reports. I found this logo online that may be the group's new look, with upside-down "V"s instead of "A"s.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City Paper. He's the author of the 2006 book "Body Piercing Saved My Life," about Christian rock and evangelical Christian culture.